I thought Mel called for replenishing with compost, but I could be wrong.

Your leaves/compost plan sounds fine to me. I would also suggest not pulling out plants, just cutting them off at the base and letting the roots rot in place, also providing some of the purported benefits of no-till gardening.

I thought Mel called for replenishing with compost, but I could be wrong.

Yes, he recommends mixing in compost whenever a square has been harvested.

Where you are there is just a single season, though you do have the task of replanting some squares with fall crops as you pull out the early spring crops (while I have what amounts to a double season punctuated by the July-August plant bake and the January-February freeze-offs). The idea remains thet same: replinish with compost every time you clear a square to replant.

agree with the others, every time you harvest from a square add compost.

Sure you can ignore this and then cover the beds with leaves or some other organic material. If you do what happens? The material turns to compost.

Adding good compost or blended commercial compost (to make it more likely to be good) simply cuts out the middle man process.

While I do try to add compost after each crop, in the fall I plant a cover crop, like annual rye. It just looks better having something green all winter in the raised bed. I till it in 3 weeks before planting in the spring. OK, it's not a till free garden but, using one of those mini-tillers is half the fun. I've also started an indoor worm bin. By next fall I hope to have enough worms to start an outdoor bin. I will simply cover a 2'x2' section of one of the beds with plywood and deposit my kitchen waste there all winter. I will rotate the cover each season and this should greatly improve the soil.

Fabulous farmer_joe! Great to hear of people out there implementing sustainable practices!